Every time quarterly smartphone shipment share rankings are announced, whoever holds the top spot gets treated as a "winner." In Q2 2026 (April–June), Samsung held onto the world's top spot in shipments—yet in that same quarter, its DX (Device eXperience) division, which covers mobile, TVs, and home appliances, posted its first loss since 2011. The cause, ironically, was a memory price surge led by the company's own semiconductor division. It was a quarter in which the winner in shipment share and the loser in profitability turned out to reside inside the same company.
Behind Samsung's hold on the top spot, a collapse across all three Chinese makers
According to market research firm Omdia, Samsung shipped 60.5 million units in Q2 2026, capturing a 22% share (up 2 points year-on-year) and growing 5% year-on-year to hold the top spot. Apple shipped 55.1 million units for a 20% share, up 23% year-on-year, setting a new record for Q2 shipments. In contrast, Xiaomi fell to 31.2 million units (11% share, down from 15% the previous year), a drop of 26% year-on-year; OPPO fell to 28.4 million units (10% share, down from 12%), down 17%; and vivo fell to 21.5 million units (8% share, down from 9%), down 18%—all three Chinese makers posting double-digit declines.
However, when it comes to the headline figure of "how much did global shipments fall year-on-year," the picture shifts depending on the research firm. Omdia initially flash-estimated the overall market decline at -4% year-on-year, but later revised the confirmed figure to -6%, or roughly 272 million units, as of July 30, 2026. The individual shares for Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo remained unchanged after the revision.
Counterpoint put the decline at -11%, calling it "the weakest Q2 since 2013," and in its own tally calculated Samsung's share somewhat higher at 24% (+4 points) and Apple's at 20% (+3 points). IDC's figures differ yet again: it reported global shipments down 6.7% to 277 million units, while shipments within mainland China alone fell 4.3% to roughly 66 million units, marking a fifth consecutive quarterly decline. In the China market, only Huawei and Apple grew, both by roughly 20% year-on-year, with Huawei's share expanding to 22.6% (from 18.1% the previous year) and Apple's to 18.1% (from 13.9%, with shipments up 24.4%).
The fact that the three firms' figures don't match is simply a result of differences in scope and estimation methodology, not a statistical anomaly. What they share in common, though, is a picture in which replacement demand concentrated around Samsung and Apple while China's volume brands fell across the board. The top spot is no permanent fixture. Back in January 2024, it was reported that Apple had, for the first time, wrested the top spot away from Samsung for full-year 2023 after Samsung had held it for 13 years—an upset at the time. This quarter can be seen as the reverse: Samsung holding onto the top spot in the numbers. In that sense, this quarter's top position owes less to broad market tailwinds than to the stumble of Chinese makers.
Why Chinese makers collapsed across the board
Behind the stumble of Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo lies a surge in memory demand driven by AI servers. Supply earmarked for smartphones thinned out in the shadow of that surge. As SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung itself shifted their DRAM and NAND production lines toward higher-value-added AI products, supply for smartphones tightened. Reported price increase rates for DRAM and NAND vary depending on calculation method—contract-based prices reportedly rose roughly 58–75% quarter-on-quarter, while spot prices reportedly surged over 700% year-on-year.
That said, the concentration of supply structure differs between DRAM and NAND. Global DRAM production is essentially monopolized by three companies—Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—whereas NAND, based on Q1 2026 revenue share, is spread across six companies: Samsung (29%), SK Hynix (18%), Micron (13%), plus Kioxia (14%), SanDisk (13%), and YMTC (13%). Even so, pricing power in DRAM is effectively held by just those three companies, and when they prioritize AI-bound supply, smartphone makers are left with little room to negotiate.
When component costs spike, the makers hit hardest are those running thin-margin, high-volume, low-price models. Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo all rely primarily on mid-range and lower-priced models, and unable to fully pass on the higher memory costs to retail prices, they had no choice but to scale back shipments. IDC has pointed out the risk that sub-$100 models—which numbered 170 million units in 2025—could become economically unviable. As for the global average selling price, IDC had initially projected a rise to $523, but has since revised that upward to $550.
This supply crunch is throwing makers' annual plans into disarray. Xiaomi is reported to have cut its full-year 2026 shipment target from an initial roughly 180 million units by as much as 70 million units (about 40%), revising it down to a range of 110–170 million units. Transsion is likewise reported to have cut its target from roughly 115 million units by as much as 45 million units, down to a range of 70–85 million units. The reason cited in both cases is precisely the shift of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron's memory production toward AI. If these downward revisions materialize, they could send ripple effects through both companies' sales networks and inventory planning.
Breaking down the "self-inflicted poisoning" that cornered Samsung
Looking at shipment volume alone, Samsung appears to be this quarter's "winner." But the earnings for the same quarter tell a more uneven story. Samsung's DX division—covering mobile, TVs, home appliances, and more—posted an operating loss of 800 billion won in Q2 2026, a sharp reversal from the 3.3 trillion won profit in the same quarter a year earlier (Q2 2025), marking its first loss since 2011 under the current comparable accounting classification. Within DX, the MX/NW business, which combines smartphones and networking, posted a 700 billion won loss—a sudden reversal from a 3.1 trillion won profit in the same quarter last year and a 2.8 trillion won profit in Q1 2026.
Samsung doesn't disclose profit and loss for smartphones alone, so it's impossible to isolate from the published figures how much Galaxy S26 and A-series sales contributed. Still, Samsung itself explained in its earnings materials that DX division's "operating performance deteriorated due to rising component costs"—an official acknowledgment from Samsung that rising component costs broadly, not just memory, squeezed DX division's profitability.
Meanwhile, Samsung's company-wide Q2 2026 operating profit reached 89.5 trillion won (up 1,814% year-on-year), net profit reached 71.6 trillion won (up 1,300%), and revenue reached 171.5 trillion won—all record highs. Nearly all of this profit was carried by the semiconductor (DS) division, whose operating profit hit 89.2 trillion won. Given that company-wide operating profit in the same quarter a year earlier (Q2 2025) was 4.7 trillion won, that's roughly a nineteen-fold increase in a single year. Converted at the exchange rate as of July 31, 2026 (1 won ≈ 0.112 yen), the DX division's 800 billion won loss comes to roughly ¥89.6 billion, the MX/NW business's 700 billion won loss to roughly ¥78.4 billion, and the company-wide operating profit of 89.5 trillion won to roughly ¥10.024 trillion; at the same rate, the DS division's 89.2 trillion won converts to roughly ¥9.9904 trillion.
Dividing the DS division's 89.2 trillion won profit by the DX division's 800 billion won loss yields a gap of roughly 111.5 times. Within the same company, in the same quarter, one division posted a loss of nearly ¥90 billion while another posted profit over a hundred times larger. Put another way, the DX division's 800 billion won loss amounts to only about 0.89% of the company-wide operating profit of 89.5 trillion won. Looking just at the MX/NW business combining smartphones and networking, the gap versus the DS division is roughly 127.4 times, and its share of company-wide profit sits at roughly the same level, about 0.78%.
Despite the smallness of the amount involved, the weight of having crossed the line into a first-ever loss since 2011—under comparable statistics—carries more significance than the raw numbers suggest. That weight is only underscored further by the fact that it is Samsung's own DS division that is driving up DRAM and NAND prices in the first place.
Indeed, the flurry of articles reporting "Samsung held the top spot" and "Chinese makers stumbled" based on Omdia's shipment data made no mention of the losses Samsung's DX division carried in that same quarter. The shipment share scoreboard and the divisional profit-and-loss statement, though reflecting the same company in the same quarter, tell entirely different stories. Lining up the winners and losers of this quarter reveals a tangled picture: the beneficiaries were Samsung's DS division, SK Hynix, Micron, and Apple, which grew its shipments; the ones left worse off were China's volume brands—Xiaomi, Transsion, OPPO, and vivo—and Samsung's own DX division. This asymmetry is closer to the true picture of the smartphone market in Q2 2026.
In India, vivo takes the top spot, with Samsung a close second
While Chinese makers collapsed across the board globally, the picture reverses when you zoom into specific regions. According to Counterpoint, shipments in the India market fell 10% year-on-year in Q2 2026, the biggest Q2 decline in six years, yet the battle for share was topped by vivo (18%), with Samsung trailing closely in second. OPPO followed at 14% and Xiaomi at 13%, while emerging brand Nothing posted the fastest growth in the market, up 105% year-on-year. Samsung's failure to hold the top spot in India doesn't drag down its overall global shipment share, but it is evidence that the company failed to secure share in one corner of a highly profitable key market—further sharpening the contours of the self-inflicted squeeze on its MX/NW business's profitability.
As for Southeast Asia, Q2-specific figures have yet to be published, so the most recent confirmed numbers are from Q1 2026 (January–March). In that quarter, Samsung was the only brand among the top five to grow shipments, with its share rising 2 points from 19% to 21% and shipment volume up 4% year-on-year to 4.6 million units. Transsion, by contrast, struggled in that same period, ranking fourth with a 16% share, 3.4 million units, down 10% year-on-year. The fact that the cast of winners and losers shifts region by region shows that the impact of the memory price surge is playing out asymmetrically, depending on price segment and the strength of sales networks.
The memory surge is expected to continue into the second half, and could ripple into Japanese storefronts
In its report on the China market, IDC has flagged the possibility that the second half of the year (July–December) could get even tougher. There is currently no sign that the memory price surge will subside anytime soon, and there is room for more makers to follow Xiaomi and Transsion in cutting their annual shipment targets. If IDC's revised average selling price forecast of $550 (up from $523) becomes reality, makers that have relied on low-price models as their mainstay will face even greater pressure to rethink their profit structures.
The memory price surge isn't a distant issue for Japanese consumers, either. The Galaxy S26 series is sold domestically through carriers including Docomo, au, and IIJmio, and rising component costs could ripple into future pricing changes for both Android and iPhone devices. The same DRAM and NAND are also used in PCs, game consoles, and home appliances, so the channels through which these price pressures spread aren't limited to smartphones. What this quarter revealed about Samsung is a structure in which the beneficiary and the victim of price hikes can coexist within the same company—and that same structure weighs even more heavily on other smartphone makers that don't have a semiconductor business of their own.